Neudeck Building Changes Hands, Prepares for $6 Million Renovation

A century-old office building in downtown Detroit, just two blocks away from the newly renovated David Whitney Building / Aloft Hotel, was recently sold to a real estate investment and management company.

A century-old office building in downtown Detroit, just two blocks away from the newly renovated David Whitney Building/Aloft Hotel, has been sold to a real estate investment and management company, according to a press release issued by Wayne County. The new owner, Bagley Clifford LLC of West Bloomfield Township, paid $2.3 million for the nine-story building and its adjacent gated, surface parking lot which can accommodate around 30 cars.

The Neudeck Building, which was named in memory of former Wayne County Road Commission chairman Philip J. Neudeck, is located at 415 Clifford Street in the heart of the city’s Central Business District and has been sitting vacant for the past five years. The 85,600-square-foot building was completed in 1918 as home to the Detroit City Gas Co., which later became Michigan Consolidated Gas Co. Wayne County has owned the Neudeck Building since 1972.

“This is a wonderful use for an old building that the county no longer uses,” Commissioner Kevin McNamara (D-Van Buren Twp.) said in the statement announcing the sale. “It is yet another great example of developers investing in downtown Detroit, and it is an opportunity for this building to be placed on the tax rolls.”

Crain’s Detroit Business reports that Hantz Bank was the primary financier behind the transaction, while Jones Lang LaSalle brokered the deal. Bagley Clifford is looking to invest $6 million to renovate the building to create street-level commercial space with housing units above. Once redeveloped, the Neudeck Building will be renamed The Philip House and will include approximately 100 rental apartments, a fitness center for the property’s residents and 9,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.